Nearly a year after a US raid killed Osama bin Laden, his core Al-Qaeda network in Pakistan is “essentially gone” but its affiliates remain a threat, US intelligence officials said.

Bin Laden’s death further weakened Al-Qaeda and it was unlikely the group could stage another strike on the scale of the attacks of September 11, 2001, a counterterrorism official told reporters.

“It’s really hard to imagine Al-Qaeda core gathering together the resources, the training, the talent, the money to repeat a 9/11 type of attack,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

While it was “too soon to declare victory,” the official said “some could argue that the organization that brought us 9/11 is essentially gone.”